The Sales Archaeologist

Have you ever found yourself coming home late at night, in the dark, muddling through your keys to try and get into your house? Doesn't that simple task get more difficult when it is really cold or wet? And yet there is only one key that will unlock that door, made to fit and made for each other.

Sometimes the match between our personality, our business model, our objectives and our abilities can be so perfect with that of a prospect we become the only "key that can fit". When this perfect scenario is created by us then even if we get flustered or if the conditioned get tricky we will still win the business because we are the "perfect fit".

How often does that happen to you?

More often the match between us and the prospect is a little less defined, there is more nuance and more "minus" and "plus" to compare. These matches might be more like the choice of wine with a meal - shiraz or pinot noir? Still a good fit but certainly not the only option.

How often does this happen to you?

Then there are the accounts that we ended up discussing in a training session yesterday afternoon. These accounts would be like a decision as to which jelly you would like to spread on your lasagna - grape or raspberry? Most of us have no problem eliminating that choice and picking none. Why? Because they just don't go together, no nuance , no necessity simply no fit. And yet most sales people and most companies will keep people in their pipeline that are not a fit and never will be and yes they end up with a bitter taste in their mouth.

How often does this happen to you?

What is the solution? As with most sales problems it comes down to asking questions that may not be easy to ask. These questions must be asked from the persective of you qualifying the prospect and not the other way around. We were asked yesterday how to fire a bad customer and a bad prospect and once again good questions should lead the prospect to the conclusion that this is not a fit. I will get us started but here are a few questions that might help disqualify the wrong prospects from your funnel - feel free to add your own.

• Usually my customers do _____ but I get the feeling you are not comfortable with that type of arrangement?
• As much as I would like to have the business and collect money from you for doing the work my sense is that we may not have the type of business relationship that I like to shoot for so...?
• One of the things that I look for in potential customers is _____ and I have not seen any evidence of that here?